


You Were Brave in That Holy War

by incidental



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 17:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2590901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incidental/pseuds/incidental
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura and Carmilla talk post-1x29. Inspired by the poem "You Were Brave in That Holy War" by Hafiz. Somewhat fluffy because my insides are made of cotton candy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Were Brave in That Holy War

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my favorite poems, and re-reading it last night I was struck with inspiration to write this piece. Let me know what you think!

  
_"You have done well_  
 _In the contest of madness._

_You were brave in that holy war._

_You have all the honorable wounds_  
 _Of one who has tried to find love_  
 _Where the Beautiful Bird_  
 _Does not drink."_  


Laura had slept the entire night (fairly well, thanks to the ongoing presence of the large, black cat in her subconscious) but she felt suddenly exhausted and overwhelmed after LaFontaine’s return. It was a nauseating sense of needing to drink a glass of water, lay down, and process what had just happened—a feeling almost like vertigo, but deep in the chest. So after Perry took LaFontaine home, that’s exactly what she did.

“What’s wrong, cupcake?” Carmilla asked, looking at Laura over her book, each in their respective beds. “I thought you’d be neurotically happy to have her—uh, them?—back.”

“I am,” Laura said, swirling the ice cubes around her glass and listening to their satisfying clink. “It’s just… well, we still don’t know anything now that we didn’t already. LaFontaine was _gone_ , but can’t remember any of it. We still don’t know what’s been taking girls, where they’re going, or how LaFontaine got back.”

“Well, we know the bit about how they’re getting pod people’d, from the book,” Carmilla pointed out. “That’s something.”

“Yeah,” Laura sighed. She set her drink down beside her bed and curled up under the blankets, but the weight pressing down on her chest wasn’t fatigue. 

Carmilla ought to have been fast asleep by now; she said she hadn’t slept all night, and typically had no problem crashing in the early morning and sleeping through any and all activity for most of the afternoon. But she laid awake in her bed now, one leg hanging off the side, flipping lazily through a book. Her body language was disinterested, but her brow was crinkled with concern. The disconnect confused Laura.

“What’s with you?” she finally asked. Carmilla quirked a brow.

“What?”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Carmilla turned on her side, looking at Laura with an expression on her face that Laura couldn’t quite peg.

“Why aren’t you?” she answered with a question.

“I just slept all night,” she said defensively. “You didn’t.”

“There’s a lot going on,” she said unconvincingly, yawning through the end of her statement.

“Carmilla, you slept through a vacuum.” Laura said bluntly. Carmilla smirked.

“Yeah, well, I’m all rested up now," she lied. “Besides, you’re practically radiating anxiety; nobody could sleep through that.”

“Sorry,” Laura muttered, turning on her other side and facing the wall instead. She could feel Carmilla’s eyes on her back and, after a minute, heard her light footsteps crossing the gap between them. The weight of her barely agitated the cheap dorm mattress as she sat on its edge.

“Talk to me,” Carmilla said, trying to sound as unaffected as possible and failing miserably. Laura turned onto her back and looked up at her fixed gaze.

“I’m just…” She made a vague motion with her hands, one like giving up, then rested them back down beside her. “What if we never figure it out? What if they just take what they need and the disappearances end, and we never stop them? What if your mother…” Laura trailed off, eyes wet. Carmilla frowned, able to think of about a dozen ways to end that question, none of them good. Most ended with Carmilla in a blood coffin, or Laura disappeared, or both. She shook the thought out of her head.

“Hey.” Carmilla gently laid herself down on the bed next to Laura, propped up on her elbow so that she was still looking down at her. “That’s not going to happen. You let me worry about Maman, okay? I won’t let her touch you.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Laura said, her voice so small as to be nearly inaudible. Carmilla pressed her lips together and sighed.

“I’m not going down without a fight,” she said. “And I’m not leaving you alone in this. Look, I stand by what I said before. You’re young, and naïve, and you don’t understand much about the way the world works. But,” she paused, reaching across the small gap between them and taking hold of Laura’s hand. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. 

“I’ve been around a long time and I’ve seen a lot of things, things you’ve only read about in history books. And some of the people who change the world in the biggest ways? They didn’t understand the way the world works either. Or, they just didn’t care. But either way, they changed things. They take out regimes, and overthrow governments, and kill dictators. You’re small and idealistic and the Lois Lane act might get you killed… but you might also change things. So breathe, okay? We’ll figure this out.”

“We?” Laura asked, looking mildly surprised and exceedingly pleased.

“Yeah, we. Without me, you’re definitely going to get yourself killed. And you’ve kinda grown on me… like a giant Alchemy Club fungus,” she added, the corners of her mouth turning upward in her trademark smirk. “So yeah, I’m here. However this ends.” 

There was a drawn pause between them, and Laura could not look away from Carmilla's eyes. They were dark and intense and held something entirely unknowable, something Laura was falling into deeper by the day. 

“I couldn’t do it without you,” she admitted.

“You’re damn right,” Carmilla said. “You’d have been abducted by an ancient vampire cabal weeks ago.”

With that, Carmilla scooted over and rested her head on the edge of Laura’s pillow, still holding onto her hand. They laid next to each other like that, in comfortable silence, for several minutes. 

_Just tell her,_ Laura thought to herself. _Just tell her how you feel. Just say, ‘Carmilla, I like you. I really like you. I really, really like you.’ Just say it._ Laura turned and opened her mouth to speak—to divulge her bare, exposed feelings, to blurt it out, whatever the consequences—but her open mouth turned into a smile when she saw Carmilla fast asleep beside her. So much for “all rested up.” 

Laura shifted and rested her head in the crook of the vampire’s neck, taking in the scent of lavender and possibly vanilla. Carmilla instinctively turned her face into Laura, resting her lips on the top of the girl’s head. Laura could feel her warm, rhythmic breaths, and it made her feel calm and very drowsy. She ran her thumb over the top of Carmilla’s hand, and then, as two pieces of one whole, they slept.

_"Wayfarer,  
Why not rest your tired body?  
Lean back and close your eyes."_


End file.
